The present invention relates to a compound mode ultrasound diagnosis apparatus capable of concurrently displaying at least two different kinds of ultrasound images or data on a single TV monitor screen.
In diagnosing a heart of an unborn child, for example, by means of the ultrasound diagnosis apparatus, commonly used is a method in which a B-mode image on real time is displayed on a display screen by using a high speed electronic scanning system while at the same time data on a desired location or locations in the B-mode image are sampled so that an M-mode image is displayed on another separate display screen. For displaying the B-mode image, an X-Y monitor of the short storage type, is employed, since the image formed through a high speed electronic scanning must be displayed on the real time basis. For the M-mode image, an X-Y monitor of the storage type is used since the image formation is made at relatively low speed.
A correlation between an instantaneous motion of the whole heart and a motion of a particular portion of the heart is very useful for the heart diagnosis of an unborn child. It is for this reason that the concurrent display of the B-mode image on the real time basis and the M-mode image is employed. For ease of grasping the correlation between the B- and M-mode images, photographing simultaneously both the images, and recording the images by a video tape recorder, it is desirable that both images be concurrently displayed side by side on the same screen, not on separate screens.
To meet the desire of the concurrent display of both the images has been considered difficult in that there is a difference between the characteristics of the two images or data required for the display, and that a complicated scanning operation is necessary for realizing the concurrent display of the different images on a single screen.